Extreme Capitalism

The exhibition entitled Jennifer Lyn Morone™ Inc will open in Filodrammatica Gallery on Tuesday, June 20th, at 8pm, and will remain on view until July 7th. Admission is free.

As we could learn from her talk she had held in Rijeka in May (below), American born artist Jennifer Lyn Morone in 2014 registered herself as a corporation in Delaware, USA, as part of a protest project she developed at the Royal College of Art in London. She is now the founder, CEO, shareholder and product of her own company, Jennifer Lyn Morone™ Inc. JLM Inc presents itself as a new business, established to determine the value of an individual.

The corporation derives value from three sources and legally protects and bestows rights upon the total output of Jennifer Lyn Morone: past experiences and present capabilities, offered as biological, physical and mental services such as genes, labour, creativity, blood, sweat and tears; selling future potential in the form of shares; and accumulation, categorization and evaluation of data that is generated as a result of Jennifer Lyn Morone’s life. Through the subversive adaptation of the corporate form the individual asserts their rights to their data as property and grants access to the markets otherwise inaccessible. In this way, the whole process of resources, production and ownership is rightly reclaimed by the individual.

“Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc has advanced into the inevitable next stage of Capitalism by becoming an incorporated person. This model allows you to turn your health, genetics, personality, capabilities, experience, potential, virtues and vices into profit. In this system You are the founder, CEO, shareholder and product using your own resources.”

With this project, which is also a life project with all the unpredictability that this implies, Jennifer Lyn Morone sets herself in the long tradition of subversive affirmation.

Not a speculative project but a real event, JLM Inc allows the artist to translate into a powerful, clear narrative the workings of extreme capitalism, the economic system in which everybody is living today, but that only a few understand and use to their own advantage. Recognizing that, in the age of social networks and data mining, we are all “data slaves”, exploited by companies to which we hand our data for free, she subverts this mechanism by turning herself into a company, thus able to protect and profit from her data. If exploitation is unavoidable, why not head into self-exploitation?

In order to take control over the data she produces, JLM Inc is working on the development of an app called Database of ME or DOME. The app collects and stores for her the data she generates: her location, heartbeat, browsing activity, mood, etc. This way, the company can sell, lease, rent, exchange or invest the data for her own profit. But personal data are only a part of JLM Inc’s business. When you are a corporation you can turn almost anything into a good or service. By thinking of yourself as a product, you can identify what assets you possess and maximize their value by turning them into new products and services. Along these lines, JLM Inc produced Lure and Repel, two scents made from Morone’s pheromone molecules that, respectively, attract and repel men. The company also entered the pharmaceutical business by producing Rejuvanix, a hormone therapy made from Morone’s DHEA, and the luxury market by producing diamonds out of the artist’s hair. All these products (data, scents, pharmaceuticals, diamonds) are sold either online or through the art market, and promoted by commercials that satyrize the ways of communication of a commercial company.

Jennifer Lyn Morone (1979) is an American born artist who in 2014 graduated with an MA in Design Interactions from The Royal College of Art, London, where, dismayed by the Snowden revelations in 2013, she designed a protest against the data industry and corporate personhood. She is now the founder, CEO, shareholder and product of her own company, Jennifer Lyn Morone™ Inc. As she underlies, JLM Inc is not a speculative project, but a new business, established to determine the value of an individual, as a means to enter the economic and legal system in order to play with and challenge the rules. Her work has been nominated and received an honorary mention from Ars Electonica (Linz), and has been exhibited, screened and presented internationally, recently at the Martin Gropius Bau (Berlin), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Carroll/Fletcher Gallery (London), ZKM (Karlsruhe), Victoria & Albert Museum (London), and the HeK (Basel). www.jenniferlynmorone.com

European Commission program Creative Europe, City of Rijeka – Department of Culture, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, Kultura nova Foundation

This exhibition is realized in the framework of State Machines, a joint project by Aksioma (SI), Drugo more (HR), Furtherfield (UK), Institute of Network Cultures (NL) and NeMe (CY).

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.